COLUMN: Applemania 2009. In one of the most anticipated tech stories this week, Apple’s visionary leader Steve Jobs took to the stage at the Yerba Buena center in San Francisco. The initial announcements included a new version of iTunes with Genius mixes, a cleaner look and better navigation (iTunes 9 was not available for download as of 11am PDT). The iTunes store is also getting an update with better navigation, which is overdue since it’s become a bit of a mess since integrating movies, TV, rentals, et al. This is important since the new version of the iTunes store (presumably you will need iTunes 9 to see the update, as no changes were visible in iTunes 8.2 beyond simpler song/single navigation, as of 11am), will now have ringtones available for $1.29, which will be great for all iPhone owners.

iTunes “LP” will provide rich media for albums, to include artwork, lyrics and related media “bundled” together, versus separate line items in the iTunes list.

The iPod touch has new pricing: As of today, the iPod Touch is $199 for 8GB. You can also get 32GB for $299 and 64GB for $399. 220 million iPods have been sold to date, according to Jobs.

The iPod Nano will now come with a built-in video camera on the back, to compete with the Flip Video products. It will have a voice-over feature, FM radio, and pedometer which can sync to Nike+. The new 8GB Nano will be $159, 16GB $179. This compares to the Flip Video 4GB at $149.

Norah Jones was the guest music performer at the event (she has also been one of the “featured” items on the iTunes store today). She played a song from her upcoming album called “Young Blood.”

Generally, many who were in attendance at the event were disappointed there was no Beatles announcement. So, it appears this was simply a clever scheduling tie-in for the various Beatles music releases today. Sigh.